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NEW YORK – Is 2022 Good for Jews? This is a difficult problem. The 2022 Element certainly fits the bill, especially in the realm of entertainment.
It’s been a banner year for great film, performance and theater productions by and/or about the Jewish experience.
Aside from what’s listed below, there are a few things that I can’t personally vouch for, but I’ve heard they’re all great.
“Patient,” a series starring Steve Carell as a Jewish therapist, “Turn Every Page,” a documentary about author and historian Robert Caro and his editor Robert Gottlieb, and Alex Edelman’s one-man show “Just For Us” is just the trilogy title I’m kicking myself for not seeing yet. (Looks like I messed up with Edelman, unless I want to take the train to DC.)
Also, despite scouting through his Instagram and emailing his publicist, I have yet to confirm whether Peter Anspach, musician of the jam-rock group Goose, identifies as Jewish. I think he did, but even if he didn’t, he and his creative team should be applauded for achieving escape velocity this year with two triumphant shows at Radio City Music Hall and a mini-tour with Trey Anastasio’s band.
(But, dear reader, I don’t like to lie to you, so I’ll let you know Among the many books I’ve read this year, Only four are from 2022, and three are Jewish, I don’t know I’d list them as great; however, Jennifer Egan’s “Candy House” is great, and she has Jewish kids, but That parenthesis is long enough! )
All that aside, let’s review and list the top 10 Jewish entertainment of 2022.
Jesse Eisenberg as Toby Fleishman in Hulu’s adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel Fleishman in Trouble (Toby Fleishman). (via JTA’s FX Network)
10) “Fleishman in trouble”
Television adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s profuse and detailed 2019 novel of the same name Jesse Eisenberg, Liz Kaplan, Adam Brody and Claire Danes, is set in a very special corner of Jewish New York City. The sequence is set at 92nd Street Y, mezuzahs perch on everyone’s doors, there’s Shabbat dinner, and key flashbacks take us back to a semester in Israel. The central character, Toby Fleishman, is a liver specialist at a prestigious hospital (hence the financial sympathy he generates among his rich neighbors in finance and entertainment), and the kind Meaning he is trying to live a righteous life. Naturally, he encountered some difficulties.
The series could have been higher on the list, but I must admit I only had time to watch the first four episodes. What, you’d rather I lie?
Noah Sagan, who plays the vampire Francis, also wrote, directed, and directed “Blood Relatives.” (shudder)
9) “Blood relatives”
Actor Noah Segan’s first feature film As a writer and director, he deftly crafts a sly horror film as well as a tender (and Jewish) family drama. The premise is that anti-Semitic accusations against Jews are bloodsuckers (literal accusations in some chapters of history) and countered. Segan creates a new melody for “The Wandering Jew”—an ageless vampire who roams the American West. It’s the only movie you’re likely to see this year that has a dude in a leather jacket and a muscular car saying “oh well.”
Still from director Nadav Lapid’s film Ahed’s Knee. (Courtesy of Shay Goldman)
8) ‘Ahed’s Knee’
Israeli director’s film set in the Arava desert Nadav Lapid Further securing his status as a true “director” on the international film festival stage. Like Synonyms, which won him the top prize at the Berlinale, “Ahed’s knee’ (which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival) is a kaleidoscopic shot of a troubled man struggling with his Israeli identity. The crisis of “low IQ” in the United States. Sometimes the Israeli artists who make the biggest international splashes seem to be dissidents, but at least they continue to work and their criticisms are accepted and evaluated. Talented Iranian director Jafar Panahi (Jafar Panahi) is currently serving time in prison and will serve six years in prison on trumped-up charges.
Nazi rally. A sign in the background reads “Kauft nicht bei Juden”, which means don’t buy from Jews. (National Archives and Records Administration)
7) “America and the Holocaust”
Just when you thought there wasn’t much new to say about the Holocaust, this PBS series from Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein turns heads force. As the title suggests, the seven-hour documentary focuses on American reactions (or indifference) to the destruction of European Jews during World War II. Taking a step back and watching a nation with lofty ideals prevaricate in the face of genocide, those who have studied the atrocity may find that rote facts and dates cast aside cobwebs in shocking and illuminating ways. (read more my review for september.)
Natasha Lyonne as Nadia Vulvokov in “Russian Dolls” Episode 201. (Provided by Netflix © 2022)
6) “Russian Doll” Season 2
Natasha Lyonne’s sarcastic, fatalistic inner-city Jew returns to Netflix this year in yet another sci-fi take on intergenerational trauma. While the convoluted circular pieces of the first season pieced together clearly, the sequel takes a different approach, sending our heroine on a crazy train ride back to 1980s Manhattan and then back to 1940s Budapest, Finally back to some sort of cosmic, emotional sewer. (The ending is a bit odd.) Through it all, there are moments between rich philosophy and zany (very Jewish) schtick. “Looks like Purim came early!” When I The first time I saw this was in April.
American photographer and activist Nan Goldin speaks during a protest in front of the courthouse where Purdue Pharmaceuticals goes bankrupt in White Plains, New York, August 09, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
5) “All Beauty and Bleeding”
Laura Poitras, the provocative filmmaker best known for headline-making political documentaries, would have seemed odd to announce Jewish-American artist Nan Goldin as the subject of her latest work.While about half of “Beautiful and Bleeding” are “typical” artist portraits (as any cinematographer about pushing boundaries can be considered typical), the engine that drives the movie is watching how Goldin uses her influence Force the contemporary art world to promote justice and combat profiteering Sackler family (Shandas, every one of them.) Faced with legal threats and intimidation, Goldin and her team stopped the “art cleansing” that the Sacklers had discovered by buying naming rights at many museums. (Sadly, not all institutions have dropped their names entirely. ) While courts have ultimately failed to hold families accountable for exacerbating, and in many cases, causing, the opioid crisis, some are not standing idly by.
A scene from the October 2022 Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt. (Courtesy/Joan Marcus)
4) ‘Leopoldstadt’
Playwright Tom Stoppard uses his family history as a springboard to explore generations of Viennese Jews before, during and after the annexation of Nazi Germany to create a late-career masterpiece. as i wrote In its Broadway debut, “there’s a confidence in its scope, characters and wit that ‘I should, and I will, be studied.'” All of Stoppard’s hallmarks are here, including some witty gag learning People of art, science, mathematics and politics. (Reimann’s equation I can’t sum up right now, but during production I thought it was the perfect metaphor for a foreboding of doom for the extended Merz family.) It’s far from an upbeat work, but it’s an artist who makes the most of his talents.
Barbra Streisand in concert at Barclays Center on October 11, 2012 in Brooklyn, New York. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
3) ‘Living in Bon Soir’
On her 80th birthday, Barbra Streisand decided to give us all a gift. Streisand and Columbia Records dug deep, releasing her first album, a live recording at Greenwich Village club The Bon Soir. Recorded 60 years ago, the live sizzling diva delivers through an hour of jazz standards, performance tunes and on-stage suspenders featuring a quartet of piano, bass, drums and guitar. It’s ridiculous to think she was only 20 at the time; I barely knew how to ride a bus when I was that age. For whatever reason, the business managers decided to use the studio-recorded album for her debut, plundering most of the tracks from Streisand’s earlier work. Considering an estimated 150 million records sold, plus Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tonys, it’s hard to second-guess any decision in her career. Still, this unearthed treasure is further proof of Barbara’s genius, a must-listen for fans and a natural entry point for anyone wondering what all the fuss is about.
From left: Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams), Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano), Natalie Fabelman (Keeley Karsten), Reggie Fabelman (Julia Butters) and Lisa Fabelman (Sophia Kopera) Steven Speer Steven Spielberg co-wrote, produced and directed. (courtesy of Universal Pictures)
2) ‘The Fabelmans’
Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical film, a sure-fire nominee for multiple Oscars, tackles anti-Semitism and assimilation, but every frame of it has a casually Jewish essence. It’s not just the way Jeannie Berlin asks, “What do you call this brisket?” or how Michelle Williams (a terrific study) calls herself “mamelah.” There’s an unspoken brotherhood between the characters — one that goes beyond the typical family. Their house is the only dark house on the block at Christmas, but this outsider status is also a strange source of power. It’s this bond and love that makes the eventual unraveling of the marriage at the heart of the story so frustrating. While there are no dinosaurs, sharks or aliens in the movie, it is, in my opinionwhich is one of the best things this incomparable director has ever done.
Left to right: Michael Banks Repeta as Paul Graff, Jaylin Webb in director James Gray’s World Doomsday as Johnny Crocker. (Courtesy of Anne Joyce/Focus Features)
1) “The End of the World”
The dumbest complaint anyone can make about a critic is to say they’re biased. Of course they are biased! When an already good movie also mirrors in an almost creepy degree the experiences that their upbringing may have shaped, it naturally strikes some chords. But even if you weren’t a Wissenheimer Jewish kid growing up in the Greater New York area in the 1980s, where grandparents and struggling parents often struggled to do the right thing and do the smart thing, James Gray’s memoir film is still a A terrific film.
Not all critics were impressed with the film — some called it self serviceOthers think it contains only a different shades It means denouncing anti-black racism. I disagree with these comments.exist my interview with gray, who called his work the opposite of a “virtue signaling film.” It takes a lot of courage to say, “Look at the horrible things I did and get away with,” and show it to the world. Moral distortions aside, it’s simply an incredible piece of work.
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